the little regulator that didn't
dymaxion and I braved Snowpocalypse '07 (it snowed yesterday! did you hear?) to get me set up for glasswork at last. I still haven't been able to find my previous valve adapter anywhere. So, okay, got that over with.
Once at the shop, I ended up helping with some machining, interspersed with setting up the glass station, and didn't actually get a chunk of time to do glass until very late in the evening. I thought it was 11; it was probably more like 2. That sort of evening. The machining work wasn't going so well and I was really looking forward to something going right.
I was using the Little Torch with the #5 tip, with propane and oxygen both set to 6 psi on the downstream directions. Turned on gas and lit it - plenty stable, as long as the knob on the torch wasn't too far open.
Turned on oxygen, settled into a nice pretty flame, got started heating the rod. (The resulting flame, by the way, was not very large at all - I'm not sure it would have worked.) I stopped when I noticed the flame wasn't stable at all. It was varying from highly oxygenated to highly fuel-rich, all by itself, with a pace eerily similar to the sleep-state power light on an iBook such as this one, or to a human's breathing.
Too much oxygen, too much fuel, too much oxygen, again and again, almost blowing out the torch several times when overoxygenated. I kept fidding with both on the torch handle, but a slightly smaller flame didn't really help.
OMGWTFGODMOTHERFUCKINGDAMMITGRRRRRRRRR. Slowly, calmly, turn the whole thing off. Wander into the lab where there are other humans who look like they might be having a good time. Whine, tiredly. Wander back out.
Got pulled into the mill project again, never quite got time to try again; kind of doubting it would have helped anyway. Is this a known issue? I guess I want to know - under what circumstances do torches do that sort of thing? It seems evident that there is some problem with my setup, possibly several, but - to steal a phrase I already use lots - I'm not even sure how to start debugging.
Got home 5am-ish, with no beads and much self-doubt; woke up at 10:30 from the rain.
Once at the shop, I ended up helping with some machining, interspersed with setting up the glass station, and didn't actually get a chunk of time to do glass until very late in the evening. I thought it was 11; it was probably more like 2. That sort of evening. The machining work wasn't going so well and I was really looking forward to something going right.
I was using the Little Torch with the #5 tip, with propane and oxygen both set to 6 psi on the downstream directions. Turned on gas and lit it - plenty stable, as long as the knob on the torch wasn't too far open.
Turned on oxygen, settled into a nice pretty flame, got started heating the rod. (The resulting flame, by the way, was not very large at all - I'm not sure it would have worked.) I stopped when I noticed the flame wasn't stable at all. It was varying from highly oxygenated to highly fuel-rich, all by itself, with a pace eerily similar to the sleep-state power light on an iBook such as this one, or to a human's breathing.
Too much oxygen, too much fuel, too much oxygen, again and again, almost blowing out the torch several times when overoxygenated. I kept fidding with both on the torch handle, but a slightly smaller flame didn't really help.
OMGWTFGODMOTHERFUCKINGDAMMITGRRRRRRRRR. Slowly, calmly, turn the whole thing off. Wander into the lab where there are other humans who look like they might be having a good time. Whine, tiredly. Wander back out.
Got pulled into the mill project again, never quite got time to try again; kind of doubting it would have helped anyway. Is this a known issue? I guess I want to know - under what circumstances do torches do that sort of thing? It seems evident that there is some problem with my setup, possibly several, but - to steal a phrase I already use lots - I'm not even sure how to start debugging.
Got home 5am-ish, with no beads and much self-doubt; woke up at 10:30 from the rain.